November sees the publication of my poem bibliography, an enormous task that took several years to compile from old records, online Google key word searches and via search indexes like Index New Zealand at the National Library of New Zealand.

The project entailed reading a lot of microfilm to find all newspaper publication of my poetry. Like a number of New Zealand authors, I had not kept good records, but the publisher Niel Wright took an interest in my work and encouraged me to complete the huge task.

The bibliography is as complete as I can get it but I recognise some of my online publications have since disappeared from the late 1990s and early Noughties.

Poetry bibliographies turn up all sorts of interesting data as well as empowering authors with a sense of their progress. I didn't think I'd find 2,000 poem publications when I began the project.

I would welcome more poem bibliographies by New Zealand authors and state the necessity of poets keeping records such as these for posterity.